PragmaticsSpeech Acts

Pragmatics is the study of meaning in context dependent on the intentions of participants in a conversational exchange.

Example A.: I have a 14 year old sonB.: Well thats rightA.: I also have a dogB.: Oh, Im sorryCan you understand the meaning of this exchange?It would be hard to catch it, unless you know that A. is trying to rent an apartment from B. and B. doesnt accept pets.

Pragmatics is the study of speaker meaning, contextual meaning, how more gets communicated than is said, the expression of relative distance. (Yule, 2000, p. 3)

It is the study of speaker meaningIt is concerned with the study of meaning as communicated byspeaker and interpreted by listener. It is the study of contexual meaningIt involves interpretation of what people mean in a particularcontext and how the context influences what is said. It is the study of how more gets communicated than issaidThis type of study explores how great deal of what is unsaid isrecognized as part of what is communicated. It is the study of the expression of relative distance On the assumption of how close and distant the listener isspeakers determine how much needs to be said.

The study of language in use.The study of meaning in context.The study of speakers meaning, utterance meaning, & contextual meaning.

If we dont have a context or some knowledge about a situation, the meaning can be invisible as in the previous example. Or A- have you seen Sam? B- the black car is over there.This seemingly incoherent text can be easily understood if we know that Sam owns a black car.

Speech Act Theory

Speech act theory was proposed by the British philosopher John Austin.

*language is not only used to inform or to describe things, it is often used to do things, to perform acts.

A speech act is Performing an act by using language.A speech act might contain just one word, as in "Sorry!" to perform an apology, or several words or sentences: "Im sorry I forgot your birthday. I just let it slip my mind."

Speech acts can be Command, apology, compliment, invitation,promise, request etc.Ex.:describing something ("It is snowing.")

asking a question ("Is it snowing?")

making a promise ("I promise I'll give it back.")

Austins model of speech acts

J. L. Austin in his book How to do things with words identifies three distinct levels of action beyond the act of utterance itself. He distinguishes the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, and what one does by saying it, and calls these the 'locutionary', the 'illocutionary' and the 'perlocutionary' act, respectively.

A locutionary act

speaking/writing a grammatical utterance.

what is said

Locution: A form of expression; a phrase, an expressionExcerpted from Oxford Talking Dictionary. 1998

An illocutionary actaction intended by the speaker. what is done In saying X, I was doing Y. In saying I will come tomorrow, I was making a promise.

Illocution: An action performed by saying or writing something, e.g. ordering, warning, promisingExcerpted from Oxford Talking Dictionary. 1998

A perlocutionary acteffect intended by the speaker. the effect By saying X and doing Y, I did Z. By saying I will come tomorrow and making a promise, I reassure my friends.

Perlocution: An act of speaking or writing which aims to effect an action but which in itself does not effect or constitute the action, as persuading, convincing. Excerpted from Oxford Talking Dictionary. 1998

Consider this,,,,'The bar will be closed in five minutesthe locutionary act : act of saying that the bar will be closed in five minutes (from the time of utterance). the illocutionary act : informing the customers of the bar's imminent closing. the perlocutionary act : acts of causing the customers to believe that the bar is about to close and making them finish their drink or order their last one. making people do something.

Searle also made his contribution to the study of illocutionary speech acts , he specified five types Searles classification of speech acts 1969

Assertives:(stating,claim,believe ,predicting,guessing )Directives:(ordering,demanding,requesting,inviting,permitting..) Commissives: (promising, offering, refusing, threatening ) Expressives:(thanking,congratulating,pardoning,blaming ) Declaratives: (naming, declaring open,appointing )

Direct and indirect speech ActsAnother type of classification of speech acts according to their structure:DeclarativeInterrogativeImperative

Direct speech acts (direct relationship structure and function)Indirect speech act (indirect relationship structure and funcion)

IDENTIFYING INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

Indirect speech acts are not direct literal statements of various acts the speaker wants to be performed.Rather, what the speaker actually means is different from what s/he literally expresses.Eg : Its cold outside

Direct speech act I hereby tell you about the weatherIndirect speech act I hereby request of youthat you close the door

The main reason we use indirect speech acts seems to be that actions such as requests presented in an indirect way (Could you open that door for me?) are generally considered to be more gentle or more polite in our society than direct speech acts (Open that door for me!). Exactly why they are considered to be more polite is based on some complex social assumptions.

Speech eventA set of utterances performed by the participants who interact in order to arrive at an outcome (Ex: requesting, complaining, making a proposal, etc.)

The term speech event refers to activities that are directly governed by rules or norms for the use of speech (Hymes 1972b: 56) speech events include interactions such as a conversation at a party , or ordering a meal, etc. Any speech event comprises several components and these are listed in Hymes grid.

Example :

The tea is really cold!Situation A: On a wintry day, the speaker reaches for a cup of tea, believing that it has been freshlymade, takes a sip, and produces the utterance complaintSituation B: On a really hot summer's day the speaker is being given a glass of iced tea, takes a sip,and produces the utterance praiseNo simple utterance-to-action correspondence is possible!!!

Silence as speech actBanvillain(1993:47) defines silence as an act of non verbal communication that transmits many kinds of meaning,depending on cultural norms.Silence can indeed be powerful message and can send non verbal cues about the communicative situation in whitch participants operats. Its meaning is interpreted according to the situation, cultural norms, the participants involved, their individual traits.

Sifianou (1997: 64) identifies two main types of silence in communication: The first is in the form of pauses and hesitations which occur within and between verbal turns. The second consists of longer silences,this type of silence is usually produced consciously and may produce either positive or negative results.Tannen(1985:97) considers thatsilence is the axtreme manifestation of indirectness.If indirectness is a matter of saying one thing and meaning another, silence can be a matter of saying nothing and meaning something .Silence as speech act is communicative and functional.It carries illocutionary force and perlocutionary force and has pragmatic uses,meanings and impact.

Tannen(1985:97) considers thatsilence is the axtreme manifestation of indirectness.If indirectness is a matter of saying one thing and meaning another, silence can be a matter of saying nothing and meaning something .Silence as speech act is communicative and functional.It carries illocutionary force and perlocutionary force and has pragmatic uses,meanings and impact.In the theory of politeness, to remain silent is the most polite strategy for handling face-threatening acts. In a certain context it may be appropriate to remain silent instead of saying something negative which might hurt the interlocutor and which might be very difficult to retract.The problem with silence is that since silence carries a high degree of indirection and ambiguity, it becomes very difficult for the other participant to know what is going on in the interlocutors mind

Ironic speech actsDefinition: Irony is a figure of speech in whitch words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words. It may also be a situation that may ends up in quite a different way than what is generalloy anticipated. In simple words, it is a difference between the appearance and the reality Pragmatical interpretation of irony begins in D. Sperber and D. Wilson [Sperber ...,1978] and R. Brown [Brown,1980] works who claim that nature of irony can be explained only from the pragmatic position as irony itself is a speech act and not a languag phenomenon.

Ironical speech act consists of the speaker, the hearer, the utterance itself, its ironical meaning, context, interlocutors shared knowledge and intention to express the speakers attitude towards the expressed meaning and his psychological state . In the cases of irony the speaker masks his utterance and reveals a certain meaning which is mostly negative or forbidden to make public and the hearer decodes this meaning as ironic.

Irony will be successful if the hearer is successful in decoding the intended meaning of the speakers utterance. Such utterances are always vague and ambiguous and there is always the possibility for the hearer to interpret them in two different or opposite ways.Exemple: Youre really a bad boy A wife is intentionally expressing her satisfaction and positive feelings in negative form by saying he was a bad boy to praise her husband for the expensive gift he gave her.It can be adequately possessed only in case if the hearer has an appropriate ability to make out the difference between implied and directly said meanings

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Why does the speaker use irony in his speech?Every society has its norms and traditions that regulate any kind of communicative behaviour that bans some kind of verbal actions. The inner intention of the speaker to create a specific comic effect which can help then to influence the hearer and to make the hearer change his view of a certain situation

The difficulty in the process of interpretation of irony lies in the speakers and the hearers communicative competence. To decode irony and to understand what the utterance really means in the given context is to adequately read between the lines

Discourse vs Pragmatics

Definition DeixisGreek: deixis display, demonstration,referencepoint of reference deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information

Types of DEIXIS

It is the anchoring of language use in a real world by pointing at variables along some of its dimensions (indexicals):Person deixis (social deixis) the speaker (I); the addressee (you); the others (he, she, it)Time deixis ( with now as the conventional deictic centre)Spatial deixis (with here as the conventional deictic centre)Discourse deixis (cohesion and coherence devices in a text)

Discourse deixisDiscourse deixis, also referred to as text deixis, refers to the use of expressions within an utterance to refer to parts of the discourse that contains the utterance including the discourse itself.

Pragmatics and speech acts in cultureSpeech acts are sometimes difficult to perform in a second language because learners may not know the idiomatic expressions or cultural norms in the second language or they may transfer their first language rules and conventions into the second language, assuming that such rules are universal. For example, the following remark as uttered by a native English speaker could easily be misinterpreted by a hearer who does not know English very well:Sarah: "I cant agree with you more. " Marie: "Hmmm." (Thinking: "She cant agree with me?! I thought she liked my idea!")

conclusion Human mind is extremely creative. Languages are very powerful, this can lead to very many contexts, situations and interpretations . Proper understanding of the context is needed to appropriately communicate and understand thoughts.